Round these two centres revolves the Theology of St. John.
He is named “the Divine,” the Theologian; and this is his scheme of Theology, his system of Divinity; not an enumeration of doctrines, not an enunciation of Articles, not Calvinism, not Arminianism, not Romanism, and not Protestantism; but just these two principles, higher and deeper than any question which divides parties or distinguishes sects: the first, “God is Light,” and the second, “God is Love.”
We are not saying, God forbid! that two brief maxims, one a metaphor, the other an abstraction, in such sense comprehend Theology as that there shall be no need of express declarations of fact, or of definite revelations of truth, beside or beyond, within or above, them. Nor are we saying—this, too, would be ignorance, as much as irreverence—that this very Epistle of St. John is destitute of method or system or logical coherence; consists only of a few platitudes and a few tautologies, the amiable feeblenesses of a pious old age, encouraging the scoffer’s notion that there is nothing in religion but what comes naturally to every man, whether to originate, to utter, to judge, or to refuse. Of St. John’s writings, more perhaps than of any part of Holy Scripture, is the Divine saying true, “Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” That which to the self-sufficient critic is a simplicity bordering on the puerile, is to the experienced Christian rather a profound mystery, of which the Holy Spirit of God keeps the key.
(1) “God is Light.” “In Him is no darkness at all.” He is the Light of truth, and the Light of holiness, and the Light of direction, and the Light of comfort. Where He, who is the Light, shines not, or shines only in some dim reflection—of Nature, or reason, or conscience, or tradition; not directly, not personally, not in Christ as the Saviour, not in the Holy Ghost as the Comforter—there is darkness; darkness four-fold, like the light—the darkness of ignorance, and the darkness of corruption, and the darkness of error, and the darkness of misery. “God is Light,”—and the purpose of Light is to shine: but the light itself may be set under a bushel, or the thick walls, the opaque windows, of the soul’s dwelling may shut it out. Vice, superstition, false religion, cowardice, indifference, law itself, may bar the entrance of Him who is the Light. Such power is the mystery of mysteries in the present: how God should be Light, and yet the darkness may refuse to let the Light in.
“God is Light”—first and before all else. They who would know God must know Him thus. No other attribute, no other manifestation, can be substituted for this or prefixed to it. Attempts have been made to displace it. To put, for example, the second text first—love before light; or something else—obedience, docility, humility, patience. It will not answer. The transposition bewrays itself by the failure. “God is Light,” and he who would know God must first come to Him as the Light.
Some have said, A half-light is better than none. Better twilight than thick darkness. So far we agree with them. But when they have gone on to recommend an acquiescence—temporary at least, prudential, deferential—in the half-light; when they have spoken of the necessity of preparation for the full light, of the peril of precipitating illumination, of the duty of forecasting probable consequences—such as a disarrangement of existing habits and systems, an exposure of errors, an unmasking of superstitions, before we have the machinery ready for the education and for the fostering of the man isolated by the very enlightenment—then we say, God is Light, and there is no communion between light and darkness. Prudence is out of place where the question is of the Divine self-manifestation. At all risks God must shine, and God must be trusted to take care of His shining.
Man, by God’s gift, has a right to the light. As well might you portion off one strip or one chink of the sky, and say to your dependant, I forbid you the rest of it—as well might you shut up within prison walls a man who had done you no wrong, and tell him that candle or rushlight was good enough for him to see by—as undertake to settle for one class or one tribe or one race of mankind the amount of Divine illumination which shall suffice for them, on the plea that to give more might disturb existing arrangements of civil or religious polity, or that until you could provide the culture you must hesitate to give the life. God dealt not thus with us, when He lit the flame of reviving light in this nation of England. First He brought into it, in this house and that, in this heart and that, the new-found, the dearly-prized treasure of His Word read in the tongue wherein we were born; and then He gave the new-made man a Reformed Communion in which to worship. “God is Light,” and they who know God must fearlessly let in upon others the light communicated to themselves.
(2) For, indeed, brethren, the second text is the mouthpiece and interpreter of the former. “God is Love.” The Light is no distant, self-contained, abstract thing—like a science or a philosophy which men may study if they will, but which comes not forth itself to invite or to embrace its votary. The Light of which St. John speaks, the Light which is God, has another name besides—a name which describes it as offering, volunteering, entreating sympathy—a name which expresses the yearning of a heart, and the stretching out of a hand, towards an object of concern, compassion, and commiseration. If “God is Light” be ambiguous as a direction, “God is Love” speaks plainly, and is no proverb. That voice, wheresoever it is heard—that voice, which is articulate only in the Gospel—has set in motion palsied limbs, and quickened dead souls, in the transmission and propagation of a Divine Light. “Si documentum quæris, circumspice!” This day, this scene, this assembly, is the proof of it. “I looked, and behold, an hand was sent unto me; and lo, a roll of a book was therein.” The hand was the Hand of Love, and the book was the Book of Light.
The Book was the Book of Light. When you hold it, as this day, closed in your hand; not opening it, for interpretation—that is not your office—but carrying it forth closed for another to open; when you think of it as a whole, gathering into one the scattered rays of its light, that you may say in a word why it is that you are devoting time and toil and substance to its dissemination; this, I think, will be your account of it.
(1) The Bible is the revelation to me of a living God. And by a living God, I mean a God whose life is towards me: not such a life as that which Elijah sketched in mockery as the life of Baal—a kind of life which made him deaf to man’s cry; a life separate and selfish and distant—talking, pursuing, journeying, per-adventure sleeping. The very opposite of this. A God whose activity is towards this world. A God whose eye and whose ear is ever open to the conduct and condition of His creatures—whose vigilance never tires, and yet is a vigilance even more of concern than of observation. One whom I cannot escape from if I would, but whose inevitable Presence is the very cause of my strength, my motion, my being. The revelation of a personal God is the first gift of this Bible. So intent is the Bible upon this work, that it risks many taunts, many misconstructions, in securing it. It is so earnest to make me see God in everything, that it cares not if it seems to say, God does everything that happens; even hardens the enemy’s heart, even sends the error which infatuates, even commissions the lying spirit, or punishes the prophet for going where he was bidden. The Bible risks these things—leaves them to be corrected by opposite sayings, or by the intuitions of that conscience to which it addresses itself—that it may at least effect this—make me see God, hear God, be conscious of God, everywhere and in all things; assure me that nothing is, with God, either too great for His control, or too little for His notice, if it affects me—my welfare, my happiness, my work, or my end. Anything, anything, says the voice of the Light, rather than a God too great to act, or a God too sublime to feel! Say at once, Where God is, He works. Call upon Him in thy prosperity, that He may bless thee; call upon Him in the time of trouble, so shall He hear thee, and thou shalt praise Him!